


House Proud

by laiqualaurelote



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Cats, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Humor, London, StarkSkype!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 14:02:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19319647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laiqualaurelote/pseuds/laiqualaurelote
Summary: "Winter is coming," said Jon Snow. "We need to think about fixing the heating. Oh, and the bill for the Internet’s here. It’s your turn, I got last month’s.""Eh, you don’t have to go on," said Tyrion. "A Lannister always pays his debts."In which Jon and Tyrion share a flat in a crumbling London townhouse and a posh cat lady moves in upstairs.





	1. As High As Honour (But Not As High As The Rent)

"Winter is coming," said Jon Snow.

 

"So?" said Tyrion, from where he was lying on the couch, half-buried in library books.

 

"So we need to think about fixing the heating," said Jon, exasperated. He tapped a knuckle on the window pane. "Is this double-glazed? This doesn't look like double-glazing to me."

 

Tyrion opened a packet of crisps, managed to get some salt on his notes and swore. "What does it matter?"

 

Jon glared at him. "When the winds of winter are blowing and the long night is here, I think we'll really regret not double-glazing."

 

"Look, I'll call the heating people." said Tyrion. "When I am done with my chapter, I will call the heating people. You call the window people or whoever the hell looks after double-glazing, get some quotes, we'll get it sorted before end-November. All right?"

 

“If you ever finish your chapter,” said Jon dourly. He headed into the kitchen, or what passed for a kitchen in their flat. "Want tea?"

 

"If you're putting the kettle on." Tyrion would much have preferred a pint at this point in his research, but buried in texts as he was, he could not be arsed to head out. He wondered if he could manipulate Jon into popping out to the shops.  

 

"Oh, and the bill for the Internet’s here," came Jon's voice meaningfully from the kitchen. "It’s your turn, I got last month’s."

 

"Eh, you don’t have to go on," said Tyrion. "A Lannister always pays his debts."

 

*

 

Besides his tendency to brood about the weather, Jon was not a terrible flatmate. He never made height jokes. He kept things tidy with an almost regimental precision, which he said was due to his time in the military. Despite being relatively fit, he did not bring girls home. He made faces when Tyrion did, but rebuffed all Tyrion's attempts to hook him up with someone because he was still moping about his ex, who had left him to go backpacking through the Andes.

 

Tyrion discovered all this the first time he met Jon, which was at the student union pub on Jagerbomb night. The Jagerbombs were two shots a quid and all in all, thought Tyrion, this was a very cost-effective way of getting around the fact that Shae was no longer speaking to him. So he had got half a dozen, and was told there were further discounts if he bought the full dozen, so he did just that and donated the other half to the poor sod sitting next to him at the bar looking like a cliche in a Billy Joel song.

 

"Problems of the heart?" he remarked.

 

"I just saw my girlfriend off at the airport," said his new drinking partner, who when asked had given the improbable name of Jon Snow. "She's gone on a one-year trip in South America to find herself. I was going to marry her. Looking at rings and everything, and she's all nah, I'd rather climb Mount Aconcagua."

 

"My ex is shacking up with my dad," said Tyrion.

 

"Ah." Jon paused to take this in. "That is properly shite, I'm sorry."

 

“Never you mind. I’ve found that liquor cures all, if applied in vigorous quantities.”

 

“Does it really?” Jon squinted at his empty shotglass. “I don’t think I’m getting anywhere.”

 

"You know nothing, Jon Snow."

 

Jon's face fell. "That's what she used to say. All the time."

 

"Okay," said Tyrion, waving for the bartender's attention. "Enough of that. Next round's on me, all right?"  

 

Over the course of the evening, he discovered that Jon was in his third year in Biology, that he came from a positively sprawling family tree of people with a different surname from him ("I'm adopted." "But why didn't you take their family name?" "It's complicated, all right?") and was looking for somewhere new to live, because his best friend Sam wanted to move out and get a place with his girlfriend.  

 

Tyrion was struck with a brainwave. "You should come live with me!"

 

Jon stared at him blearily over the rows of shotglasses. "I'm serious," said Tyrion. "I've got a studio in Camden. I used to live with my siblings but they've gone and moved elsewhere because - reasons - so now it's just me. I could use some help with the rent."

 

"You just met me," said Jon.

 

"You're single, you can hold your liquor and you haven't made any dwarf jokes yet," said Tyrion. "I don't have very high standards."

 

Which was how Jon ended up moving up into Tyrion's flat, which was in the middle of a crumbling Victorian townhouse with three storeys, or rather two storeys and an extensive basement with a beautiful view of a rubbish dump and, every other week, the slow decomposition of a dead pigeon. The walls were thin, which meant that they lived their lives to the soundtrack of drunk people congregating outside the student hostel next door, or that one guy in the house behind them who seemed to be perpetually getting laid. On the bright side, it was really near the Tube.

 

“How’d you get this place for this kind of rent in this part of town?” Jon wanted to know, when they’d got his things - not very many, and mostly outfits in varying shades of black - unpacked. “I was looking earlier - I always thought these parts way out of my price range.”

 

“Bit of advice on house hunting,” said Tyrion. “Ask that kind of question before you sign the lease.”

 

Jon narrowed his eyes at him. “It’s not a front for illegal money laundering, is it?”

 

“No,” said Tyrion, truthfully, and did not elaborate. “Now, let me show you the complicated way we collect our mail.”

 

*

 

Jon Snow had decided to read Biology at university because of the zombie apocalypse. When he was young, Ned had brought home a George A. Romero box-set and he, Robb and Theon had watched all the films in it in a day with open-mouthed horror. This left Jon convinced that zombies were not supernatural but rather a real scientific possibility, and so the best way to prepare for the impending apocalypse was to get really acquainted with all the viruses that might potentially turn the human race into ravening undead.

 

It turned out that Jon was a bit shit at biology, however, so he also worked out a lot and ran 5km every weekend.

 

Tyrion was very patient about the zombie thing, and about how Jon would do things like buy fifty cans of tinned peas whenever they were on discount at Lidl, or refuse to use Russell Square tube station because "it's a death trap, what if someone got infected on the platform?" Then again, he would also say things like "I think the zombie perfectly epitomises the Freudian theory of _unheimlich_ , don't you?" or "Have you considered how Adorno's problem of aesthetic violence might play out for the undead?" Jon was never sure if he was making fun of him or deadly serious.

 

Tyrion was in the middle of some kind of PhD that involved a lot of dead philosophers and him staggering home every week with piles of books that stacked up taller than both him and Jon (not difficult, to be honest) and were a nightmare to clean around. Every so often one of the piles collapsed and provoked a bookish avalanche in what passed for the living room space.

 

They had the building to themselves, it seemed - at least, until somebody rented the top floor apartment. Jon was tipped off by the sudden influx of boxes one Wednesday afternoon.

 

"I wonder who's taken it," he said to Tyrion, as they hoisted up the broken blind to peer down at the boxes stacked in the street. Men in workers’ overalls were carrying them up one by one, but the new tenant did not seem to have put in an appearance.

 

"Perhaps it's a sheikh of some sort," remarked Tyrion. "The top floor is enormous - I heard there's some mezzanine loft bed rigmarole going on."

 

"Probably, if they can afford this lot." Jon gestured at the movers. When he had moved in to live with Tyrion, he had wrestled all his worldly belongings up the stairs on his own, with the occasional help of his mate Tormund. Tormund had introduced Jon to Ygritte and therefore seemed to feel mildly responsible for Jon's recent misfortunes in love. Jon did not often like to exploit the guilt of others, but Tormund was built like a bear and the Victorian heap did have a treacherous number of steps.

 

"Or a cat lady," went on Tyrion, pointing at a pile of smaller boxes. Jon squinted. It seemed to be a brand of quality cat food. "A posh cat lady."

 

"Why would a posh person want to live in this pile?" said Jon. "Besides you, of course."

 

"I am not posh," protested Tyrion.

 

"You are too," retorted Jon, "you only ever want to shop at Waitrose, and you refuse to drink anything from Oddbins."

 

"Because it's piss," said Tyrion. "I reserve my liver damage for the finer things in life."

 

They did not actually meet the new tenant for more than a week, most of which Jon spent in labs on project work and was therefore not at home for. He made it home on Thursday afternoon after handing in the assignment twenty minutes late, stuck some chicken jalfrezi in the oven to reheat and collapsed on the sofa.

 

As he was staring blankly at the ceiling, it began inexplicably to darken, like a bruise. The centre of the bruise sagged, like the bottom of a bubble, and ejected a drop of water, which landed on his nose.

 

"What the f - " began Jon, and then the ceiling began to rain on him.

 

Cursing, Jon struggled into his shoes and stormed up the stairs. He hammered relentlessly on the door of the top-floor apartment until it opened.  

 

"You need to turn off the shower," began Jon, and then stopped and stared.

 

The new tenant was a woman of almost unbearable beauty, with pale, practically luminescent skin and hair a shade of silver that could not have been natural. The hair was also dripping. She was wrapped in a towel, and she was looking at him like he was a live beetle she had found in a Tesco value pack of baby spinach, a phenomenon Jon was more familiar with than he should be.

 

"I _beg_ your pardon?" she said in the frostiest of tones.

 

"Well, ah," said Jon, "sorry to disturb, miss, but your shower is leaking into my apartment."

 

"Through the floor?"

 

"Yes, through the floor."

 

"That's ridiculous," said the towel-clad vision. "How am I to shower?"

 

"That," said Jon, "is something we could perhaps sort out later, after you've stopped flooding my kitchen."

 

"I - " began the girl, and then gasped as a streak of brown shot past her ankles and down the stairs. "Drogon!"

 

Jon pelted after the cat and caught up with it on the second-floor landing. It was a great furry beast, and furiously resisted recapture. Jon seized it around the middle, and yelled as it clawed his bicep.

 

"Oh, give him here," said the girl, readjusting her towel so she could have her hands free for the cat. "Come to Mama. It's a bad Drogon, isn't it, why - "

 

Jon was staring up the stairs behind her. "You didn't happen to bring your keys with you, did you?"

 

The girl followed his gaze. "It's a self-locking door, isn't it?"

 

Jon nodded.

 

"Fuck!" said the girl. "Motherfucking fuck!"

 

There was an awkward pause, in which Drogon hissed and tried to projectile vomit on Jon but managed only to get the banister.  

 

"Well," said Jon eventually, "would you like to come in for a cup of tea?"

 

Inside, the stain on the ceiling had widened and water was now trickling in a regular stream onto the couch, which was sopping. Jon emptied the recycling bin of beer bottles and stuck it under the leak. It began to fill up at an alarming rate.

 

"All right, that is a problem, I will admit," said the girl.

 

Nobody answered the number she had been given for their elusive landlord. Jon tried calling Tyrion, who picked up on the third ring. "I'm in the library," Tyrion whispered. "You have ten seconds before one of the librarians works out I didn't stash my phone in holding."

 

"The new tenant's shower is flooding our kitchen," said Jon. "Also she can't turn it off because her cat ran away and then we got locked out."

 

"For fuck's sake," said Tyrion, and then, to someone else, "Pod, watch my books, make sure nobody touches any of my Kristeva," and then, back to Jon: "Hang in there, I'm going to try to get hold of the Hound."

 

*

 

Jon focussed on the tea and tried valiantly to ignore how there was a beautiful woman wandering the apartment in his Union hoodie and rolled-up jogging bottoms, stroking her cat like a diminutive and poorly-dressed Bond villain and gazing judgmentally at the stacks of philosophy books and tinned peas.

 

She had introduced herself as Daenerys Targaryen. "Are you like Welsh or something?" Jon had said. Daenerys had looked at him like he had insulted her mother and said she was nothing of the sort.

 

She was now eyeing Jon's apocalypse stash. "Expecting a famine, are we?"

 

Jon sighed inwardly and braced himself. "It's for the zombies."

 

Daenerys quirked an eyebrow at him. She had impressively flexible brows. "The zombies."

 

"It's not a matter of if, but when," Jon mumbled to himself.

 

"Our new domicile is structurally unsound and our neighbours are insane," Daenerys told Drogon, scratching him under the chin. "Oh well. It could be worse, my dear, it could be worse."

 

Jon privately thought this a bit rich coming from a woman who talked to her cats, but did not voice this. Instead he said: "What breed is he?"

 

"Drogon is a Maine Coon," said Daenerys. "I have two others - Rhaegal is a Norwegian Forest Cat and Viserion is a Ragdoll. I do hope they're all right. They must be in a frightful panic without me there. When did you say your flatmate was coming back?"

 

"Er, soon. He has to see a man about a dog."

 

"I'm really not a dog person," said Daenerys coldly. She peered into Jon's room. "What's that you're making?"

 

"A cape," supplied Jon. "For winter. Which is coming, as you know."

 

"I do know." Daenerys fingered the faux fur bristling with pins. "This is an Ikea rug, isn't it? You're cutting up an Ikea rug to make a cape."

 

"It was on sale," muttered Jon defensively.

 

Daenerys came round to stare at him. Her eyes were very odd, almost violet. "You're properly nuts, do you know that?"

 

"Are you wearing contacts?" said Jon.

 

"No," said Daenerys. "Also, that's a rude question."

 

Jon raised the mugs of tea between them diplomatically. "Do you take milk?"

 

*

 

In all the time Tyrion had known the Hound, he had never answered his phone. Tyrion, however, knew his favourite restaurant - or more accurately, the greasy spoon he loathed the least - and sure enough, when he made his way there, the Hound was sitting in the window, chomping his way through a heart-attack-inducing fry-up and playing Angry Birds.

 

He looked up when Tyrion marched into the cafe. “Fuck’s sake, Imp, what d’you want now?”

 

“It’s an emergency,” said Tyrion.

 

“Fucked if I care,” said the Hound, irately stabbing a fried tomato.

 

Tyrion prayed for patience. “It’s the new tenant. Her shower’s leaking into ours, and she’s locked herself out.”

 

“Congratulations,” said the Hound. “You two have found a neighbour that deserves your stupidity.”

 

“If the third floor collapses from waterlogging,” Tyrion grimaced, but made himself continue, “Father will have words.”

 

“You fucking Lannisters.” The Hound tossed his fork on the table. “He’s paying,” he barked at the harried-looking server, pointing at Tyrion, and stalked out.

 

It turned out the culprit was simply the faulty sealant at the base of the new tenant’s shower. The Hound, having opened the door with his spare key and reunited their neighbour with her cats, put down a fresh layer of sealant, said nobody was to shower for the rest of the day and packed up his toolbox.

 

“Are you going to do anything about the stain on our ceiling?” Tyrion wanted to know.

 

“No,” said the Hound shortly and sloped off, presumably back to his cholesterol-defying breakfast.

 

“Well,” Tyrion said to their new neighbour, “welcome to the manor. I’d like to say it gets better, but it doesn’t really.”

 

“Oh god,” said Daenerys, and shut the door on them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This originally began as a crack exercise in which I tried to get everyone to say their House words in ridiculously mundane situations but then it grew plot oh well


	2. Ours Is The Wi-Fi

“...for the night is dark and full of terrors,” the woman from the heating company was saying.

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Jon was nodding. “Absolutely.” On the couch where neither of them could see him, Tyrion rolled his eyes.

 

“Which is why you should consider upgrading your heating system,” she went on in her rich and unplaceable accent. “The new models increase energy efficiency by 20 per cent.”

 

“Sounds great,” said Jon. “We’ll - ” he glanced over at Tyrion, who was mouthing  _ hell no _ “ - discuss it and get back to you.”

 

There was a crash and a foul smell filled the room. “Bloody hell, it’s rank in here,” said one of the handymen levering the heater out from its hole in the wall, the bearded one with the topknot. “Is this where you stash the bodies?”

 

“No, we don’t,” said Jon, horrified.

 

“Oh, is that why the heating’s busted?” put in Tyrion, levering himself off the couch. “I knew those pesky corpses would be trouble, Jon, I told you we should have put them in the basement.”

 

The other handyman, the one wearing an eyepatch, turned on a long LED lamp that made him look like he was waving a lightsaber and stuck it in the hole. “It was a mouse,” he announced. “Chewed through the wiring and fried itself.”

 

“Poor little bugger,” said the other handyman. “Got a dustpan in here?”

 

While they cleaned up the remains of the late rodent and redid the wiring, their colleague took notes on a clipboard and asked Jon thorough, bordering on invasive questions such as “how many people live in this flat?” and “are you in a relationship?” Jon answered them politely, if bemusedly, and she wrote all this down, nodding encouragingly. She was a redhead, of what Tyrion presumed to be the enthusiastically bottle-dye variety. That must be it. Jon had a thing for redheads.

 

“Where’d you find these people?” he whispered to Jon during a break in the questionnaire. “They’re intense.”

 

“They had really good Yelp reviews,” Jon whispered back.

 

“I’d be worried about them burgling our flat,” said Tyrion, “but seriously, who would?”

 

“Would you like to join our mailing list?” asked the redhead, as the handymen levered the heater back into place.

 

“No,” said Tyrion before Jon could open his mouth. 

 

She shot him a look with narrowed eyes. “If that will be all? The Lord of Light will invoice you.”

 

*

 

The doorbell of the house had not worked in living memory. Visitors who were friends got in by texting; visitors who were strangers had to resort to the age-old method of throwing gravel or other sundry rubbish off the streets of Camden at the window. Bronn was not a stranger, but he never passed up any reason to throw stuff, and so Tyrion was alerted to his arrival by an empty can of Irn Bru bouncing off the glass.

 

When he went down to let him in, he realised Bronn wasn’t alone.

 

“Surprise,” said Jaime. He was lounging against the grotty railing and somehow managing to make it look like a menswear photoshoot might happen any moment. Tyrion did not know how it was possible to simultaneously delight in and loathe somebody’s appearance so much. “It’s your favourite brother.”

 

“That’s like saying I’m Father’s third favourite child.” Tyrion glared at Bronn. “Really? Low blow.”

 

Bronn shrugged. “You’re two of my best clients. I try to keep you both happy. Now, are we going to stand on the street shooting the shit with a backpack full of weed, or are you going to let us in?”

 

In the flat kitchen, Jaime looked around critically while Bronn unpacked on the table. “This place is even more of a shithole than I remember.”

 

“I can throw you out,” said Tyrion. “Not physically, obviously, but if I slip Bronn here a tenner he might lend a hand.”

 

“Don’t lowball me, it’ll take at least a fifty.” 

 

“You have mushrooms growing on the ceiling.” Jaime pointed at the stain Daenerys’s shower had left. “Actual fungi. Caps and everything.”

 

“We’re not tall enough to deal with it,” said Tyrion. “Want to volunteer?”

 

Jaime shuddered. “Where’s Lord Snow?” Bronn inquired, handing over Tyrion’s stash.

 

“He’s at Crossfit.” Jon made no secret of his disapproval of Bronn, particularly his habit of dealing drugs in their kitchen. Tyrion had taken to giving him a heads up when Bronn was coming around, so that he could continue to live in plausible deniability. “What do you want, Jaime?”

 

“The soiree.”

 

Tyrion threw up his hands. “No.”

 

“Look, Father wants us all there, even if it’s just for appearances. It looks good to people.”

 

“I’m not walking back into that nest of vipers,” snapped Tyrion. “No, scratch that. That’s too harsh on the vipers.”

 

“Just show your face,” cajoled Jaime. “Cersei’s even promised to be civil, and Father - ”

 

“ - is going to flaunt Shae on his arm?”

 

“Oh, Shae.” Jaime waved dismissively. “Shae won’t be there, if that’s what you’re worried about. That’s not even a thing any more.”

 

Tyrion felt sick. He considered rolling a joint and smoking it right then and there in the kitchen, but Jon would know if he disabled the fire alarm. He fished for Bronn’s payment in his wallet so he wouldn’t have to look Jaime in the face.

 

“He has no hold over me,” he muttered, even though that wasn’t true.

 

“I hate to say it,” began Jaime.

 

“Yes, I’m still living here, and yes, I’m paying rent like any other tenant.” At a lower rate than an ordinary tenant might command, he did not add. “I’ve got a scholarship for my fool’s degree and I’m not taking - ”

 

“Tyrion,” said Jaime, sadly. “Did you really think the department of philosophy has enough to stump up for a scholarship?”

 

Tyrion opened and shut his mouth, then - for lack of anything to say - slammed his fist on the table. “Oi,” said Bronn, who was trying to roll a spliff.

 

“Get out,” said Tyrion to Jaime. 

 

Jaime put up his hands in surrender. “Okay. But you should come to the soiree.” He backed out of the door. “We can send someone to look at the mushrooms, if you like.”

 

Tyrion flipped him the middle finger. Jaime sighed and ducked out as Bronn got up to follow.

 

“You don’t have to go,” Tyrion told Bronn. 

 

“Nah,” said Bronn. “All these family feels are giving me gastric.” He stuck the spliff in the corner of his mouth and left, waving Tyrion’s money as if in salute. “Thanks for your business, guv.”

 

*

 

Jon was poking at the mushrooms on the ceiling with a broomstick when the knock on the door came. It was Daenerys, her hair in braids and a mixing bowl in her arms.

 

“Hello,” she said.

 

“Hi,” said Jon, at a loss. “The noise - it’s not bothering you, is it?”

 

“What?” Daenerys stared at the broomstick. “Oh, no. I came to ask if I could borrow some sugar.”

 

Jon stared at her. 

 

“I say borrow, but really I’m not going to give it back,” Daenerys went on. “We’re trying to bake a cake, but we’re out of sugar and it’s pouring outside. So I thought I’d ask the man who’s stockpiling commodities for World War Z if he could spare some sugar. A cup will do.”

 

“Right.” Jon put down the broomstick. “I’ll have a look. Um, come on in.”

 

Daenerys stepped cautiously into the flat, eyeing the mushrooms. “You know knocking them off the ceiling won’t get rid of them, don’t you? You have to rip them out, root and stem.”

 

“Yeah, well, we can’t reach them.”

 

“Why not get a stepladder?”

 

Jon and Tyrion should really have got a stepladder a long time ago, but they had not because they were both still in denial about their height issues. 

 

Daenerys helped herself to the sugar bin in Jon’s closet. “Tell you what, I’ll loan you my barstool. Consider it a trade for the sugar.”

 

It was Jon’s first time seeing the top floor apartment, which was even swankier than Tyrion had made it out to be. There was a loft bed, under which was a kitchen area larger than Jon’s room. A girl with a cloud of curly hair, her nose dusted in flour, was wrestling what seemed to be a larger puff of flour, but on closer look resolved itself into a fluffy white cat with great blue eyes.

 

“Viserion got on the counter,” she told Daenerys in despair as they came in.

 

“Oh, Vizzy, really?” Daenerys put down the sugar and seized the white cat, which flailed in her arms, but without much effort and more smugness than was called for. “Jon, this is Missandei; Missandei, this is Jon Snow, our mad neighbour.”

 

“So I hear.” Missandei rubbed at the smudge of flour on her nose and began dumping spoonfuls of sugar onto the weighing scale. “You believe the dead will walk, Jon Snow?”

 

“I think it’s not impossible.”

 

“All men must die,” said Missandei phlegmatically. “At least you are prepared. Dany, how many servings are we going for?”

 

“Four? Six?” Daenerys was trying to coax Viserion to stay on a cat perch; Viserion clung slothfully to her arm. “G eats twice as much as you and me combined, and it’s his cake.”

 

Jon felt something on his foot. He looked down and saw a cat with a glossy bronze-tipped coat and bright green eyes, which was insistently tapping his toe. 

 

“Um,” said Jon.

 

“Oh, that’s Rhaegal,” Daenerys called over her shoulder. “He does that to everyone. Don’t take it personally.”

 

Jon carefully moved his foot out of range. Rhaegal considered this development, circled Jon once and proceeded to tap the back of his leg.

 

“I’m just going to grab that barstool,” Jon told the two women, and did so, Rhaegal persistently tapping along. “Happy baking.”

 

Daenerys came over to remove Rhaegal so he could leave. “You know what the best way to get rid of a fungi invasion is, don’t you?” Rhaegal rolled over in her arms and started tapping her collarbone.

 

“No,” said Jon. “What?”

 

“Burn them.” Daenerys smiled serenely at him. “Burn them all.” Then she swept back into her flat and left Jon staring on the landing, clutching the barstool.

  
  


*

 

Tyrion had got up to take a piss in the middle of the night and was blundering back through the darkness of the living area when he became suddenly and horribly aware that there was somebody there. Fortunately he had already gone to the bathroom. 

 

“Fucking hell,” he gasped, fumbling for the light switch.

 

There was a teenage girl perched on their couch. She was calmly holding a mug of cocoa, still steaming, and looked non-plussed at having been discovered.

 

“Tyrion Lannister,” said the girl matter-of-factly, and sipped at her cocoa. She looked vaguely familiar, but Tyrion could not for the life of him work out why.

 

When it became apparent that no more was forthcoming, Tyrion ventured: “So who the hell are you again?”

 

“I’m Arya Stark,” said the girl. “You’ll excuse me for letting myself in. I was in the neighbourhood and I felt like I could use a drink.”

 

A Stark. Tyrion placed her, finally, as one of the many faces on the screen whenever Jon carried out the mammoth endeavour that was StarkSkype, in which the various offspring of his enormous family were made to video-call his parents at the same time. It always devolved into a lot of shouting and the one time he had wandered into the room while it was going on, Catelyn Stark had demanded that they be introduced and then interrogated him about his lineage and living habits. It had left Tyrion with an innate terror of all things Stark, which Arya was in no way dissipating.

 

“How’d you get in?”

 

“Semantics,” said Arya. “Don’t mind me, I’ll be off in a bit. Tell Jon I said hello.”

 

“Er,” said Tyrion, “want me to wake him up so you can tell him yourself?”

 

Arya shook her head. She got up from the couch, rinsed her mug out in the sink and moved to the door. Before unlatching it, she said casually over her shoulder, “You could let him know, though, that Sansa will be in town next week and she’ll need somewhere to crash.”

 

Before Tyrion could ask who Sansa was, she had slipped out of the flat and was gone in the night.

 

Jon seemed totally unfazed that his little sister had broken into their flat in the middle of the night to drink cocoa and left without so much of a how-d’you-do. Or that Sansa, whom it turned out was another sister, would be crashing at theirs out of the blue. “Sansa’s no trouble,” he informed Tyrion. “She’ll probably leave this place neater than it started out.”

 

“Is she as terrifying as Arya?”

 

“Neither of them is terrifying,” Jon said, puzzled. 

 

“Your little sister is a ninja,” said Tyrion. He didn’t know what it was about being terrified of other people’s sisters. Surely his own had already set a very high standard for terror. “I wasn’t sure if she was going to offer me my own cocoa or slit my throat.”

 

“Oh, that,” said Jon. “Arya’s always been like that. I think MI6 might be trying to recruit her.” A pause. “I’m probably not supposed to tell people that. Don’t tell anyone that.”

 

Sansa, when she showed up on their doorstep, was nothing like Arya. She had red-gold hair in an impeccable braid and a wariness in her cool gaze. She embraced Jon in an almost business-like fashion and shook hands with Tyrion, then took herself off to Jon’s room to rest, pleading the length of the train journey from Yorkshire. 

 

“She’s just got out of a bad relationship,” Jon explained to Tyrion in an undertone while the shower was going. “A real piece of work, that bloke. Me, Robb and Theon wanted to go teach him a lesson, but she said she’d handled it.”

 

“This flat is a great place for recovering from bad relationships,” said Tyrion affirmingly. “We’re a regular Lonely Hearts Club in here.”

 

The Starks were early risers; Tyrion stumbled, bleary-eyed, out of his room the next morning to find Sansa and Jon already at the table, eating pancakes and discussing their multifarious family members. 

 

“...and Mum’s been on edge about it all summer,” Sansa was saying. “Going on about how it’s not like Robb to leave them out of the loop, like we should all be updating them on everything that happens in our lives. So it’s been good to get out of there for a bit, really.”

 

“Talisa seems nice though.” Jon doused his pancake in maple syrup. “She works for the Red Cross and everything.”

 

“Everyone seems nice to you, Jon,” Sansa told him. “But yeah, I think she’s all right.” She glanced up as Tyrion came to the table and smiled - there was something pleasant but polished about it. “Good morning. We saved you some pancakes.”

 

“Oh, she’s a keeper.” Tyrion clambered wearily into the chair. “Pass the butter, will you, Snow?” To Sansa, he inquired:  “Did you sleep well?”

 

“It was all right, mostly. Around two in the morning, there was a lot of banging and screaming from the house behind you.”

 

“Oh, that’s just Sex Man,” said Tyrion. “He’s very popular. Play some music, it helps.”

 

“I could go round and have a word with him if you like,” said Jon, who seemed horribly embarrassed to have to be discussing Sex Man with his sister.

 

“No, no, that’s all right.” Sansa coloured slightly.

 

“I mean how would you even recognise him?” Tyrion wanted to know. “Line a bunch of blokes up and have them say, ‘Yeah, baby, yeah’?” He paused. “Actually, that would probably work.”

 

“There is no need,” reiterated Sansa, “to talk to Sex Man.”

 

Jon strove to change the subject. “So when do you start your internship? Sansa’s going to be interning at a fashion magazine,” he informed Tyrion.

 

“On Monday,” said Sansa, sipping her tea. “I’ll look for flats to rent over the weekend, so I’ll be out of your hair soon.”

 

“Don’t worry about that,” Jon assured her. “You’re welcome here for as long as you need - isn’t that right, Tyrion?”

 

“If she makes more pancakes, she can stay forever,” said Tyrion. It was not like he was the one sleeping on the couch to make room for her. “So you want to go into fashion?”

 

“I used to want to be a fashion designer,” admitted Sansa, “but I don’t think that’s what I want to do now. I’m hoping to study mass communications further down the line. Mum’s friend said he could help me get this internship in London - ”

 

“Pete?” put in Jon. “Pervy Uncle Pete?”

 

“Don’t call him that in front of Mum. He’s not really our uncle,” Sansa explained to Tyrion, “just this guy who’s been in love with Mum since forever.”

 

“What a tosser,” supplemented Jon.

 

“He did get me through the door, Jon. Mum’s delighted.”

 

“I wish you joy of it,” said Tyrion. “Mass comms - way more useful than my degree, though that’s really not saying a lot.”

 

“Tyrion is doing a PhD in philosophy,” explained Jon.

 

“Ah,” said Sansa. “How - ” she paused, considering “ - cerebral.”

 

Tyrion chuckled darkly into his mug of tea. “A diplomat.” He was struck, suddenly, by an idea. “Sansa, would you like to earn some money?”

 

Sansa looked at him inquiringly.

 

“I have to go for this godawful family thing on Sunday,” said Tyrion. “This bloody soiree - my father throws it every year for his business contacts and friends of the family. Everyone who knows me there hates me. I can’t get out of it, so I will actually pay good money to somebody, anybody, who can make decent conversation and not shrivel up and die when my sister opens her mouth, to accompany me there.”

 

“You want to hire me as a fake date.”

 

“Yes,” said Tyrion. “Exactly that.”

 

“No!” exclaimed Jon. “Tyrion, you’re not hiring my sister to be...to be some sort of  _ escort _ …”

 

Sansa held up a hand to silence him. “How much?”

 

Tyrion named his price. Jon choked on his tea.

 

“You really don’t like your family, do you,” mused Sansa.

 

Tyrion laughed mirthlessly. “Sansa, you have no idea.”

 

“Just my company,” went on Sansa. “No funny business. And I want to be paid up front.”

 

“I don’t think - ” Jon tried again.

 

“I will not lay a finger on you without your say so,” vowed Tyrion. “I am a gentleman. Jon here will attest that I am a man of honour.”

 

“I will?” spluttered Jon. “Since when?”

 

“Also he can crush my skull with a curl of his mighty bicep, so rest assured that should I have designs on your virtue, I would do so in fear for my life.”

 

“Done,” said Sansa. She offered him her hand.

 

Tyrion shook it. “Pleasure doing business with you, Miss Stark.”

 

Jon stabbed at his pancake in frustration.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many of the things that happen in Jon and Tyrion's flat are drawn from personal experience. Contrary to what Daenerys believes, fire is not the best way to get rid of a fungal invasion. Use drain cleaner, and liberally.


	3. Paint Splatters, And Now Our Swatch Begins

There was a protest going on in the quad when Jon arrived for his shift at the coffee box. “What are they on about now?” he asked Sam, who had just served up a latte to a harried lecturer and was now cleaning off the foam nozzle.

 

“Rent hikes, I think. Not that I’m complaining - it’s been good for business.” Sam began the complex process of extricating himself from the box. “We’re low on milk. I dropped Edd a text, hopefully he’ll be by in a bit with supplies.”

 

The Castle Black boxes were about the size of a phone booth, just wide enough to accommodate a person, a coffee machine, a mini-fridge and some plumbing. There were about half a dozen stationed around the campus. If you had decent barista skills and didn’t mind the cold, it was not a bad way to earn something in between classes. Jon did shifts here in the mornings and worked nights as a bar-back at the pub where Tormund tended bar.

 

Jon locked himself into the box as Sam helped to rearrange the signs, which had slid out of place slightly during the handover. TAKE THE BLACK, the one overhead proclaimed hopefully in capslock - followed, in Sam’s chalked cursive, _+50p for milk, all beans sustainably sourced._

 

Sam had dark rings under his eyes. “Baby’s not sleeping,” he explained when Jon asked. “That and essay deadlines - been a bit of a rough combination.”

 

Jon, who considered himself to be a fairly selfless person, still did not know what would possess someone to help an unwed mother raise a baby that wasn’t his, while both still students, and then get disowned by his parents on top of it all. He supposed this was the thing they called true love, his last shot at which had got on a plane to Bolivia six months ago.

 

“I’ll make you a cup,” he said encouragingly. “Double shot, on me.”

 

Sam hung about drinking his coffee while Jon served a stream of students, lecturers, and several of the protesters, who were cycling through various chants (“No ifs, no buts, we need those rental cuts”; “You hike, we strike!”). He ducked under the counter to look for extra napkins and resurfaced, only to be confronted with the brilliant gaze of Daenerys Targaryen.

 

“Oh, it’s you,” said Daenerys, a little breathlessly. She was holding a protest sign and an armful of flyers. 

 

Jon waved lamely at his own sign. “Here to take the black?”

 

“What? No. I mean, yes. Long black and two cappuccinos, please.” In the distance, Jon could see Missandei at the fringe of the crowd, holding another sign and talking to a shaven-headed bloke who was gazing at her like she hung the stars and glowering at everyone else. Jon supposed this must be the mysterious G, eater of cake.

 

Daenerys tucked a strand of gleaming hair behind her ear. “And while you’re at it, would you like to take a flyer?”

 

“I don’t know what I’ll do with it besides spill coffee on it,” said Jon, “but sure.”

 

While the coffee machine burbled, he skimmed the flyer. “Seems a bit odd, you being in a rent protest. Because - you know.”

 

“Because I’m a rich white girl who rents her own studio in central London with her family’s ill-begotten fortune, you mean,” said Daenerys, crisply.

 

“I didn’t say it,” said Jon. “You did.”

 

“I am aware of my privilege, and try to check it where possible,” said Daenerys primly, “and I don’t let it stop me from speaking up for those who cannot.”

 

“O-kay,” said Jon. “That’ll be nine-fifty. Would you like a loyalty card?”

 

“No.” Daenerys slid ten pounds over the counter coolly and picked up the cardboard tray of coffees. “Keep the change.”

 

“So _that’s_ the neighbour,” remarked Sam, as Edd pulled up on his bicycle. 

 

“That girl?” Edd began unloading milk from his backpack and passing it to Jon. “I’ve seen her around. She’s at all the protests - funding cuts, Save The Refugees, the pro-Palestinian movement, you name it.”

 

“She’s into civil rights, I guess.”

 

“Sure,” said Edd. “Lot of free time for that sort of thing, when you needn’t work on the side to stump up rent.” He nodded at them and got back on the bicycle. “See you around.”

 

“What did she mean, about her family’s ill-begotten fortune?” Sam asked. 

 

“Daenerys Targaryen, daughter of Aerys Targaryen.” It was one of their regulars, a bald man who worked in student affairs and always ordered a chai latte around noon. “The mad investor. They say he stole millions from his clients. Died in prison, but by that time little Daenerys and her brother had been packed off abroad. Somewhere in the Middle East, I believe it was.”

 

“What happened to her brother?” Sam asked.

 

“Oh, he died. Killed by her ex-husband, as you do.”

 

Jon nearly scalded his hand. “Her ex-what?”

 

Their regular took his sip of his chai latte and nodded approvingly. “This has been nice, Jon Snow. You all have a great day now.”

 

“I don’t remember telling that guy my name,” Jon whispered to Sam. “Did I tell that guy my name?”

 

“The other day he asked me how Gilly and the baby were doing,” Sam whispered back. “He’s been doing privacy invasion since before Facebook made it a thing.”

 

They watched the bald man amble past the picket line and wave affably at Daenerys, who stared at him, confused, before hesitantly raising a hand to wave back.

 

“Also I think you buried the lede on the ex-husband there,” added Sam.

 

*

 

Tyrion and Sansa took the Tube to the soirée. "I thought Lannisters cabbed everywhere," Sansa remarked. 

 

"I think you'll find, escort fees aside, that I'm a rather cheap date," said Tyrion. 

 

"Good thing I wore my flats."

 

"Considerate of you."

 

Sansa was statuesque even in flats. She was wearing a crushed velvet black dress with spangling on the shoulders, which somehow achieved class without looking outmoded. "It was my mum's," Sansa said by way of explanation. "I made it over."

 

She declined a seat. Probably wise, given that exposure to the surfaces of the Northern Line at this hour was like lying on a McDonalds table after a night out.  

 

"Is your ex going to be there?" she asked.

 

"My brother said she wouldn't be," said Tyrion. "But he's wrong more often than he thinks." Still, he felt Jaime was right about this. Somebody like Shae would not be welcome at the soirée. It would be just like Father to use her to hurt him and then cast her off.

 

"What do you want to do if she is?" Sansa wanted to know. "Also, what's she like? Is she the drink-splashing kind? Only I'd like to know beforehand, because it's really hard to get stains out of velvet."

 

Shae was a hundred per cent the drink-splashing kind, thought Tyrion ruefully. Out loud he said, "She's probably not going to be there."

 

"Okay," said Sansa doubtfully. "Do you still have feelings for her?"

 

"Hell, let's not go into that," said Tyrion balefully. "Or shall we talk about _your_ ex, is that fair game?"

 

"Absolutely not," said Sansa.

 

"Well, there we go."

 

They switched lines at Embankment. On the new train, Sansa said: "Tell me something about yourself."

 

"Like?"

 

"Anything. Talk about, I don't know, your degree."

 

Tyrion snorted. "You do not want to hear about my degree."

 

Sansa shrugged. "You're paying for my company. You can talk about whatever you like."

 

"Ever heard of...differential space?"

 

Sansa shook her head.

 

"What's one thing you like?"

 

Sansa considered this. "Cake," she eventually decided. "I like cake."

 

"Cake it is," said Tyrion, and began to talk about spatial theory. 

 

It took up most of the train journey. “...and so, like Lefebvre says, you’ve got to see the diversity of social space with a structure closer to millefeuille pastry in its flakiness than, say, classical mathematics.”

 

“Okay,” said Sansa dubiously.

 

“Do you get it?” 

 

Sansa considered. “Maybe a bit. Not really.” She shrugged. “Oh well. I’m just a stupid girl.”

 

Tyrion looked at her for a beat. Then he said: “You’re quite determined to get people to underestimate you, aren’t you.”

 

Now she looked him in the eye. “It makes it easier for everyone, I think.”

 

“Don’t do that,” said Tyrion. “Not around me.”

 

Sansa contemplated him. “Okay,” she said eventually.

 

They got off in Kensington and walked to the house. Dusk had already fallen, even though it was barely past six. Jon would probably have made a note of it and pointed out that winter was coming; thankfully, Sansa did not seem to share this particular family habit.

 

They were met in the front hall by Qyburn. “Master Tyrion, so good to see you. And this is…?”

 

“Never you mind,” said Tyrion tersely, shrugging his coat off and dropping on the nearest sculpture, ignoring Qyburn’s outstretched hands. Sansa cautiously handed him her coat and thanked him. 

 

Tyrion had made sure to arrive half an hour late, so that the soirée would already be in full swing. He made cursory greetings to random business contacts of his father’s and snagged two glasses of wine at the earliest opportunity. Sansa was staring openly at the house, its Persian carpets and silverware, the art on all the walls. “Is that a Turner?” she mouthed as they passed a gallery of seascapes.

 

“Oh, that, yes,” said Tyrion. “Good eye.”

 

“I was joking,” said Sansa. “But wow.”

 

She went over to a smaller seascape, one in which dark waves roiled in the foreground, white-tipped against a flaming sky. “I rather like this one.”

 

“Emil Nolde.” Both Sansa and Tyrion started. His father was standing behind them, hands clasped behind his back, regarding the painting with his patrician air. “Stunning, isn’t it?”

 

“Y-yes,” stammered Sansa.

 

“One of the finest of the German Expressionists, for my money,” said Tywin Lannister. “A Nazi, of course. But does that make his art any less splendid?”

 

Sansa gaped. Tyrion cleared his throat and said: “Well, Hitler came to the conclusion that all modern art was degenerate, including Nolde’s, and had all his works removed. So I daresay the artist himself might have changed his mind about things in the end.”

 

His father regarded Sansa. “And you are?”

 

“Sansa Stark, sir. Thank you for having me at your soirée, you have a lovely home.”

 

“I don’t remember asking you,” said his father. “But since you’re here anyway, enjoy the party.” He nodded briefly at Tyrion, then strode away.

 

“I fantasise sometimes about shooting him in the balls,” Tyrion informed Sansa in an undertone. 

 

Sansa laughed nervously and took a deep swig of the wine.

 

They found Jaime in the parlour. “Brother dearest!” he cried as they approached, and then, giving Sansa a once-over, “My god, which cradle did you rob for this one?”

 

Tyrion sighed. “Jaime, this is Jon’s sister Sansa.”

 

“Charmed,” said Jaime to Sansa. “How much is he paying you to be here?”

 

“I resent your assumption about my dire social prospects. Not everyone who goes out with me must be paid to do so.”

 

“All your friends are either related to you or living with you,” said Jaime remorselessly. “Or Bronn. Who is only friends with you because you pay him money.”

 

“Yes,” said Tyrion. “It’s worked out beautifully so far and I don’t see the point in upsetting our system.”

 

“Anyway,” went on Jaime, “it’s obvious you’re paying Sansa to be here, because if you were actually interested in her, you wouldn’t let her within spitting distance of Father. Because we all know how well that went last time.”

 

“Would you believe it, he’s actually the most tolerable person in this house,” Tyrion told Sansa conversationally. “Which is really not saying a lot.”

 

“Seen Father yet?” Jaime inquired.

 

“Yep. Blue-ticked us like a WhatsApp chat.”

 

“Super. Then you’ve just got to stick it out until - ”

 

“And who have we here?”

 

Tyrion hastily swallowed his wine and turned to face Cersei, who was leaning silkily against the mantelpiece. She had on a wine-dark dress traced at the waist with gold filigree the same shade as her sleekly-cut hair. 

 

“Well, if it isn’t our sweet sister,” he said heavily.

 

Cersei ignored him. “My, aren’t you a lovely one,” she said to Sansa. “Is that dress vintage?”

 

“My mother’s,” said Sansa. 

 

“Love it. I’m Cersei.”

 

“Oh, I know!” Tyrion blinked at the sudden excitement in Sansa’s tone. “I saw the spread that High Society did on you, it was just splendid.”

 

“Oh, that rag,” said Cersei, but Tyrion could tell she was pleased. “Not my best angle, but what can you do?”

 

“I don’t always read the profiles because they tend to focus on society wives,” went on Sansa, positively gushing, “but I liked how they highlighted you as a career woman. It makes such a difference to the coverage. It’s exactly the kind of story I want to pitch at the magazine I’m working for - ”

 

“You work at a magazine?”

 

“The Rose. I’m just an intern, of course.”

 

“I’m sure you’ll do brilliantly. And you want to write about fashion?”

 

“Absolutely. It’s my dream.”

 

“Delightful,” said Cersei. “We must speak more. Would you like a tour of the upper rooms?”

 

“I don’t think - “ began Tyrion.

 

“I hope you don’t plan to hog this little dove’s time all evening,” Cersei steamrolled over him. “That would be a criminal waste. Come on,” she said, taking Sansa’s arm. “I always relish a bit of girl talk.”

 

Tyrion shot Sansa a look of alarm. _It’s okay_ , Sansa mouthed at him, and then she let herself be led away by Cersei.

 

“Don’t look like that,” said Jaime in the wake of their departure. “Cersei means well.”

 

“She does not,” retorted Tyrion, “you know she absolutely does not.”

 

“Let her play, she won’t try anything tonight or Father’ll have her head.” Jaime snagged a bottle from a passing server’s tray and topped Tyrion’s glass up. “Maybe your little girlfriend will even get a byline out of it. Are you sure she’s no gold digger?”

 

“Who even knows any more?” Tyrion could not shake that sense of foreboding. “And if she were, we should be the last people to judge.”

 

Jaime clinked his glass with Tyrion’s. “Touché.”

 

Tyrion endured some small talk with Uncle Kevan and some people he vaguely recognised as being from the Iron Bank, listened to Lancel waffle on about his art history degree and sat through an interminable monologue from Pycelle. When Sansa and Cersei still hadn’t reappeared by then, he decided to go look.

 

They were not in any of the sitting rooms or Cersei’s suite. Tyrion was headed to check the library when the door burst open and Sansa stumbled out.

 

“Oh, Tyrion!” she said loudly, and then nearly collapsed on him. Tyrion staggered - their height difference was doing him no favours. “I don’t feel so well,” she went on.

 

“Shit.” Tyrion felt the creeping unease in his gut bloom into horror. “Did somebody drug you?”

 

“Not quite,” said Sansa quietly in his ear, “but pretend they did, so we can leave.” Raising her voice, she went on, “Everything’s spinning…”

 

Sansa was a very fine actress, though she was also letting gravity do a lot of the work. Tyrion got her more or less upright and began to walk her down the stairs. “Easy does it -”

 

“No head for drink,” Cersei remarked. She had appeared on the opposite landing and was regarding them coolly across the gap, a glass of red in her hand. “You’d think a girl that tall wouldn’t be such a lightweight.”

 

“That’s enough from you,” snarled Tyrion. They finally reached the first floor and began a sort of three-legged race to the front door. Above the heads of the crowd, Tyrion saw his father turn in their direction and frown slightly. “We’d better hurry,” he whispered to Sansa, and she let herself recover enough to make it down the hallway. Qyburn had appeared out of nowhere with their coats. “Would Miss Stark like a little something to clear her head?”

 

“She’s not touching anything else in this house,” Tyrion snapped at him, seizing both their coats. Then finally they were out in the bracing chill of the night.

 

They kept up the charade for a couple of blocks, before Sansa straightened up abruptly and put her coat back on. “You were not exaggerating about your family,” she said.

 

“I may even have undersold them,” admitted Tyrion. “So who did it?”

 

“Cersei, I think.” Sansa stuffed her hands in her pockets and began to walk. She was shaking, Tyrion observed. “I went out to the powder room, and when I came back she was in the library with this geriatric creep, Walter something - ”

 

“Walder Frey.” Tyrion shuddered.

 

“ - then we sat and talked for a bit, and she kept offering me more wine. I felt something was off, so I pretended to drink. The moment I did, she left, he tried to grab me and I legged it.”

 

“I’m so sorry,” said Tyrion.

 

“You did warn me.”

 

“Jon’s going to kill me.”

 

“He doesn’t have to know. He’ll come over all chivalrous, you know how he is.” Sansa looked around. She had stopped shaking. “I’m starving, actually. Want to grab a bite?”

 

Tyrion bought her chips and gravy in an all-night kebab shop near the station. Sansa ate like a bird - she dipped her chips with her little finger sticking out like she was taking tea with the Queen. 

 

“You’re pretty bright, for a Stark,” he told her.

 

“You’re pretty decent, for a Lannister.”

 

Tyrion laughed. It was the first time all night. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Joffrey doesn't exist in this AU for convenient plot reasons - I needed Sansa not to have a connection with Cersei before meeting her at the party - also, I imagine that without arranged marriage and with birth control, Cersei wouldn't be married with children. So it'll be interesting to see how that changes her motivations.
> 
> Here is Emil Nolde's [The Sea B (1930)](http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/full.php?ID=65138), which as far as I know is hanging in the Tate Modern, not Tywin Lannister's house.


	4. What Is Plaid May Never Dye

Somebody had exploded a unicorn in the laundry. It was lying disembowelled on top of one of the machines when Jon got there. It had been pink, plush and full of sparkly stuffing, which was now floating lazily in the air, glinting in the sunlight.

 

Jon batted stuffing away from his own laundry – all black, as usual – until he could clear a path to a free machine. He was bundling in the sheets – Sansa had offered to wash them for him, but things had been rather hectic what with her moving to her new place – when the door was flung open and in stalked Daenerys. She took in the scene, then pointed at a pile of displaced laundry on top of one of the dirtiest machines and said with deathly calm: “Did you see who took my washing out of the dryer and put his in instead?” 

 

“Sorry,” said Jon. “It was already like that when I got there. You’ve got to be careful with the laundry around here – the washing machines lock, but the dryers don’t.”

 

“Well, I didn’t think this was going to be a problem, because when I decided to rent this place they told me it came with laundry facilities.”

 

“It does,” said Jon. “Only they’re downstairs and open to the general public.”

 

Daenerys picked through her laundry with disgust. “Ugh, it’s all covered in lint now. And it’s got all this – what is this? Glitter? Why is there glitter in the air?”

 

Jon nodded at the unicorn carcass. “I’m guessing somebody thought this was machine-washable.”

 

“And they didn’t dispose of the body.”

 

Jon shrugged.

 

“I have lived in many countries,” said Daenerys. “But never have I seen a city as barbaric as London.”

 

“It’s all right, really,” said Jon, feeling like he had to stick up for his place of chosen residence. “It might be a bit rough, the first couple of years, especially all the grime and the getting randomly mugged while going to the supermarket – but it really grows on you.”

 

“Fuck it, I’ll just wash it again,” decided Daenerys, scooping up her tainted laundry and shoving it in a new machine. “And then I’m going to take this wanker’s laundry out of the dryer and set it on fire.”

 

She was backlit by the late afternoon sun, which made a halo around her white-gold curls as she spoke. It was disturbing, Jon thought, how somebody could look so beautiful while talking about property destruction.

 

“Or,” he said, and pointed at the unicorn carcass.

 

Ten minutes later they were running up the stairs of the Victorian heap. Daenerys was breathless with laughter. “I’m not sure if I want to be away from the scene of the crime,” she gasped, “or if I want to be there to see that arsehole’s face when he opens the dryer and sees that a unicorn’s bled glitter into his clothes.”

 

“Could get violent,” said Jon.

 

“Ah, bet you could take him.”

 

“What, am I defending your honour now?”

 

“It was your idea, that unicorn.” Their shoulders knocked as they stumbled up the stairs; Daenerys looked over at him. “Got any plans?”

 

“Um,” said Jon. “Plans?”

 

“To kill time. During the cycle.” Daenerys checked her phone, which she had set a timer on. “It’s half an hour, isn’t it?”

 

“Oh. I was going to do some readings.”

 

“Well,” said Daenerys. “You could – ” she let her eyes trail up the stairs “ – come up and sit for a bit.”

 

Jon stared at her. He was a bit dizzy, probably from inhaling unicorn glitter, and the proximity of her clear violet gaze was not helping. His head was sparking with questions like _What do you mean, sit for a bit?_ and _Do you really have an ex-husband?_ and, quite crucially, _Will he also murder me for having these thoughts?_

 

“I,” he began, and then: “Shit, did I leave the door open?”

 

He had not. He pushed the door open cautiously, Daenerys on his heel, and saw the strange woman standing in his kitchen.

 

She was tall and sleek, something cat-like about her, but the angles of her face were hard. Her blonde hair was cropped elegantly above the collar of her silk blouse, which probably cost more than the sofa she had been looking down her nose at when they came in.

 

“You must be Jon Snow,” she said. “Where’s your little whore of a sister?”

 

“Who the hell are you?” Jon growled. “How’d you get in?”

 

“I see my idiot brother didn’t bother to tell you about who really owns this place.” The woman cast a disparaging glance around the kitchen. “Which is disgusting, by the way – how does anyone even live here? Or is it just a curious function of being male?”

 

“Sansa’s not here,” said Jon, “and I’m not telling you where she is, so you can fuck right off.”

 

“It’s adorable, this big brotherly behaviour.” The woman smiled like a knife. “If you see your sister before I do, tell her I’m coming for her. Tell her I’ll have her eyes for beads, but not before I destroy everything and everyone she loves – which, I suppose, includes you, so you can look forward to that – and force her to watch.”

 

Jon, his mind roiling, wished Tyrion were here. Tyrion would have thought of some pithy comeback to this woman’s bizarre threats. Jon mostly responded to threats by shouting and hitting them, but instinctively felt this would not work out too well here.

 

“Cersei Lannister,” said Daenerys from behind him. 

 

The woman – Cersei, Tyrion’s sister, that made slightly more sense to Jon but still not very much – stopped and turned to look at her for the first time.

 

“Yes, I thought I recognised you from the papers,” Daenerys went on calmly. “Though the file photo they used must be quite dated, you look much older in person.”

 

Cersei’s chin went up. “And who might you be?”

 

“Daenerys Targaryen. I have the upstairs apartment.”

 

“You do, don’t you,” said Cersei, considering. “But not for much longer, I daresay.”

 

Daenerys’ eyes flared. “What do you mean?”

 

“Don’t believe everything you read in the papers, a woman still has claws.” Cersei swept past them and out the door. Her voice floated up the stairs: “And mine are long and sharp, my dear.” They heard the front door bang shut after her.

 

Jon sat down in a chair. “What was that about?”

 

Daenerys regarded him quizzically. “Don’t you know? It’s been all over the papers.”

 

“I don’t really read the papers,” Jon confessed.

 

Daenerys sighed. “You _do_ know nothing.”

 

“Oh god,” said Jon. “Don’t start now.”

 

They ended up going out to the newsagent’s to get a copy of the paper. There was a man in black leather and an ambitiously low V-neck in the laundry, trying to pull the unicorn out of the dryer and swearing a blue streak. Jon and Daenerys ignored him.

 

The paper in question was The Reach. Its front page headline screamed “CASTERLY CORP BEHIND STUDENT RENT HIKES EXPOSED”. Underneath that: “How one family firm got its claws into London’s housing market”. There were two bylines, and the second one was Sansa’s.

 

“Shit,” breathed Jon. “When did Sansa write for The Reach? I thought she was interning at a fashion magazine!”

 

“The Rose? They’re both under the umbrella of Tyrell Holdings, maybe she transferred.” Daenerys peered at the byline. “Sansa Stark’s your sister? Why do you have different surnames? Is she married?”

 

“Long story,” murmured Jon, scanning the article, which promised the inside scoop on Tywin Lannister’s dodgy dealings in the private rental market and his firm’s stranglehold on student accommodation. Among other things, it cited “documents seen by Reach reporters” and quoted a conversation between Cersei Lannister and landlord Walder Frey on turfing out tenants with rent shortfalls to make way for more elite developments.

 

Jon fumbled for his phone. He tried to call Tyrion, who did not pick up. Neither did Sansa.

 

“She did good work, your sister,” went on Daenerys. “You can tell her I said so. Well, if you ever get ahold of her.”

 

“Shit,” said Jon again, with feeling.

 

*

 

“I cannot believe you went for the Lannisters,” was the first thing Robb said when he came online. “The balls on you, Sans!”

 

“Oh, don’t make me blush,” said Sansa dryly. In the background they could see glimpses of her new place in Vauxhall, which Jon had yet to visit in person because he was still wrapping his head around the drama of what she had done.

 

“I still think you should have told us what you were doing,” he said.

 

Sansa rolled her eyes. “Well, then you wouldn’t have let me go.”

 

“Yeah, but using Tyrion like that? That was not on.”

 

“He made me an offer,” said Sansa. “It was an in and I took it. Don’t start, now you sound like Dad.”

 

“Yeah,” put in Robb, “you got the trademark Ned Stark furrow going on betwixt your brows. Now say something about honour.”

 

Sansa blew a strand of hair out of her face. “Have you talked to him? Tyrion.”

 

“Haven’t seen him since Monday. Don’t know if he’s avoiding me or avoiding the flat, on account of how Cersei Lannister’s been here out for your blood.”

 

“Not a word about that, by the way,” said Sansa hastily, “not in front of – ”

 

“Kids!” Their parents had finally got Skype going, although the webcam was still pointed at their midriffs. “Can you see us?”

 

“Up, Mum, up.”

 

After some jerking about, their parents managed to get their faces in the screen. Rickon was vaguely visible in the background, playing what was presumably Candy Crush. “Sansa, love,” said Catelyn, “we’re just so proud! Your first byline!”

 

“And on the front page!” Ned waved the clipping at the screen, because of course they had already cut it out and had it laminated.

 

“Though they did put that Brienne woman first,” went on Catelyn.

 

“She’s a senior correspondent, Mum, I was lucky she was nice enough to let me have joint byline.” 

 

“Well of course she did, you got that scoop out of the Lannister house, didn’t you?” Catelyn turned to shout up the stairs. “Bran? Are you online yet?”

 

“In a minute, Mum!” they heard Bran’s faint reply.

 

“And where are – ah, there’s Arya.” Arya seemed to be sitting in pitch darkness, her face lit in a ghostly fashion by the light of her screen.

 

“What are you doing?” Sansa demanded. “Are you in a closet?”

 

“Just somewhere quiet,” said Arya non-committally.

 

“Why’s it so dark? _Where_ are you?”

 

“Hm,” said Arya. “Where’s Bran and Theon?”

 

“Don’t know if Theon will be joining us,” said Robb, “the shipboard WiFi gets really iffy out at sea.”

 

“Bran!” shouted Catelyn again. “Get online! We’re all waiting for you!” To Rickon, “Could you run upstairs and get your brother to come online? There’s a love.”

 

“Ugh,” said Rickon, sloping off upstairs. There were the sounds of argument, and then Bran came online, Rickon leaning over the back of his chair.

 

“Sorry, Mum, Dad. Bit busy with something.”

 

“What are you hacking now?” said Arya snippily. “Busting another firewall, are you?”

 

“Shut up,” said Bran. “Are you in Gendry’s closet?”

 

“Who’s Gendry?” asked Catelyn, eyes narrowing.

 

“Nobody,” said Arya. “Hey, look, there’s Theon.”

 

“...so the connection seems okay, but I don’t know if it…” Theon’s screen froze with his mouth open at a less than flattering angle.

 

“Aaaaand screencapping that,” said Robb with a flourish.

 

“Anyway,” their father resumed after a few seconds of waiting in vain for Theon’s connection to resurface, “we were just saying how chuffed we are that Sansa’s got her first byline.” He toasted Sansa with his mug.

 

“Have you moved over to the main newsdesk yet?” Catelyn wanted to know. “How are they treating you over there?”

 

“Everyone seems nice,” said Sansa. “Brienne’s really taken me under her wing. We’re working on follow-ups to the rents story now.”

 

“Is that a good idea?” Jon demanded. “The Lannisters are already calling for your head, and you want to dig deeper?”

 

“They’re what?” 

 

Sansa was glaring. “Put a sock in it, Jon!”

 

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Ned rumbled. “Did they threaten you, Sansa?”

 

“ _No_ , Dad.”

 

“Yes,” said Jon ruthlessly. “Cersei Lannister showed up at my place and said she would destroy you. Also I think she might evict me and Tyrion. And our neighbour, who just happened to be there.”

 

“That Cersei always was a bit mental, wasn’t she?” Catelyn remarked to Ned. “Remember when she used to date Robert, back in the day?”

 

“Quite sure Robert would rather we all didn’t remember,” said Ned dourly. “Look, Jon, can you go over to your sister’s, make sure she’s all right?”

 

“I’m perfectly fine!” moaned Sansa. “Jon does _not_ need to come over.”

 

“We would just feel better if you did, is all.”

 

“Bet they’ve put out a hit on you,” sang Arya blithely. “Bet there’s assassins staking out your place this very minute.”

 

“Oh, there aren’t.” Bran was tapping industriously at his keyboard. “I’ll let you know if that changes.”

 

“Bruv,” said Rickon, “you need to stop doing that, it’s weird.”

 

“I’m just trying to help, Rickon.”

 

Theon’s face unfroze. “...congratulations are in order, Sansa!” 

 

“We’re having a crisis now, Theon,” said Arya, “do keep up.”

 

“Really? W - ” Theon froze again.

 

Jon’s phone bleeped. It was a text from Sansa in the siblings-only WhatsApp chat. _Et tu, Jon?_

 

 _LOLOLOLOL._ This from Arya, who followed up with a string of knife emojis.

 

Their parents were now discussing protective measures. “Maybe Jon should walk you to and from work – ”

 

“Or you could come back to Yorkshire, darling, maybe that would be best – ”

 

“ _No_ , Mum, that is _completely unnecessary,_ please stop freaking out.” _I hate you,_ Sansa added in text.

 

Jon responded with a shrugging emoji.

 

“Or Robb’s reading week is coming up, maybe he could come down from Oxford and help Jon keep an eye on you – ”

 

“I am doing quite well on my own, Mum!”

 

“Now, now, Sansa.” Their father looked stern. “What is it we say? The lone wolf dies – ”

 

“ – but the pack survives,” intoned everyone in unison. Sansa bit her lip, probably in an effort to keep from rolling her eyes.

 

 _Robb, do something_.

 

 _Fine,_ Robb texted back, _but you owe me_. Onscreen, he cleared his throat.

 

“Not to steal Sansa’s thunder, but I’ve got some news,” he began.

 

Everyone paused. Arya sent the chat a GIF of Stephen Colbert eating popcorn.

 

“So Talisa’s pregnant,” went on Robb casually.

 

Catelyn dropped her mug. “ _What_?”

 

“Well, that sucks,” said Theon into the silence. “Um, so...what was the problem again?”

 

*

 

Tyrion was grading first-year essays when the knock on the door came. The essays were going from bad to worse – the one he was ploughing through seemed to have eschewed logical structure for Joycean stream-of-consciousness – and he felt so in need of diversion that, despite the fact that the person behind the door could be Gregor Clegane sent by his sister to shoot him in the face, he said: “It’s not locked.”

 

It wasn’t either of the Cleganes, but Sansa. She didn’t venture past the threshold, leaning nervously against the doorjamb. “Hi,” she said.

 

Tyrion could feel an encroaching headache. “Like a condom, Sansa, I can only be used once.”

 

“I guess I deserve that,” said Sansa. She lifted a bottle of Scotch and waved it tentatively. “Look, I’m here to say sorry. I did what I had to do to get the story, but Jon’s right – it wasn’t decent to make use of you like that.”

 

“Should have listened to Jaime,” retorted Tyrion. “Only he figured you for a gold-digger, not a muck-raker.”

 

Sansa winced. Tyrion sighed. “Come in. Shut the door behind you.”

 

Sansa edged into the room and, at Tyrion’s gesture, sat in the chair opposite him. She placed the bottle between them, a peace offering. 

 

“Jon hasn’t seen you at home for days,” she said. “He’s worried, but in a manly and socially awkward fashion.”

 

Tyrion waved a hand wearily. “I’m fine. Just doing some all-nighters in the library.” 

 

“Not hiding from your family?”

 

“They know where I am. If they want to kill me, they can do it during office hours.”

 

“I’m sorry,” said Sansa again.

 

“Just tell me one thing.” Tyrion steepled his fingers and rested his forehead against them. “Did Cersei really spike your drink that night?”

 

“Yes,” said Sansa simply. “I’d slipped out to your father’s study to photograph the documents, and when I got back, I saw her through the crack in the door.”

 

They regarded each other over the bottle.

 

“I wish you’d told me,” said Tyrion finally. “Because I’d have helped you, damn it.” 

 

“I couldn’t be sure.”

 

“No, you couldn’t,” agreed Tyrion. “But now you know.”

 

“Now I know.” Sansa stuck her hand over the desk. “Truce?”

 

Tyrion gave her a searching look. Sansa didn’t blink.

 

He sighed and reached out. They shook.

 

“I _will_ fix this,” said Sansa earnestly, as she got up to leave.

 

“Course you will,” said Tyrion fatalistically. “See you at the bottom of the river.”

 


	5. Unwashed, Undried, Unbroken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry the pauses between updates are getting longer. Work's insane.
> 
> Content warning for protest-related violence in this chapter

“What a dive,” was the first thing Jaime said when he walked into The True North.

 

Tyrion grit his teeth. “I’m sorry, the Ritz was a bit out of my budget, what with me having been disowned and all.”

 

“Hey, you’re the one who asked to meet.” Jaime slid into the chair next to him, looking around at the pub with distaste. “Cersei’d kill me if she knew I was here.”

 

“Nobody’s going to know you’re here.”

 

“Yeah, because it’s a dive, and I don’t frequent dives.” Jaime waved to get the bartender’s attention. “Pint of your least tragic piss, if you please.”

 

Tormund slammed a pint of some indiscriminately-pulled liquid in front of him. “That’ll be twelve quid.”

 

“What, for a pint?” Jaime was outraged. “What kind of price is that?”

 

“It’s the price for posh wankers, is what.” Tormund glowered at Tyrion. “We’re only letting you drink here ‘cos you’re Jon’s mate, but pretty boy here keeps this up, won’t be your fucking sister who’ll kill him.”

 

“Put it on my tab,” said Tyrion wearily. “Look, Jaime, I’m grateful you’ve come out to meet me, please try not to antagonise anyone at Jon’s workplace, I’ve seen the bouncer break up a fight with a lamppost. Now, what’s going on?”

 

Jaime eyed said bouncer, who was looming shaggily by the entrance making the doorframe feel inadequate. “Well, Cersei’s convinced you were in on it, for starters.” He drank from his glass and made a face. “What is in this, again?”

 

“Giant’s milk,” said Tormund, straight-faced.

 

“Bleargh,” said Jaime. “Anyway, she wanted to kill the lot of you, but Father and I talked her out of it – bit tricky, we said, not very subtle – so she’ll settle for turfing you out.”

 

“What, me and Jon?”

 

“Oh, all of you,” said Jaime. “You, Jon, that girl upstairs we should never have let to for starters, the house next door, the house behind you, the entire block.”

 

Tyrion felt cold. “But they have nothing to do with it.”

 

Jaime shrugged. “It would have happened eventually. That area’s worth a fortune, they’ve been planning to tear it down for, oh, ‘mixed-use development’ or something. It was going to be a couple of years down the road, but your little girlfriend’s stunt has expedited matters.”

 

“What kind of timeline are we looking at?” 

 

“Next week.”

 

“Fuck.”

 

“Yep.”

 

“But aren’t there contracts and all that sort of thing?” Tyrion demanded. “What about the deposits?”

 

“Ah, contracts,” said Jaime. “The Casterly legal team will go through them like so much confetti. And you can forget the deposits. Honestly, Tyrion, you’re supposed to be the smart one, why’d you bring the Stark girl to the party?”

 

“I did not help Sansa screw our family over,” said Tyrion through clenched teeth. “But you know what? I kind of wish I had.”

 

“Look, I’ll try to keep as much heat off you as I can, but you know how Cersei is when she gets on the warpath, and don’t even mention Father. I don’t know which option he thinks is more of an affront, that you betrayed us on purpose or that you were stupid enough to let it happen.”

 

“It won’t look good, mass eviction,” warned Tyrion. “The Lannister name’s already being dragged through the mud in the papers.”

 

“They’ll have enough to worry about. I hear a defamation suit is in the works. They’d do best to – ” Jaime broke off, staring out of the window of the bar. “Shit!”

 

“What?” Tyrion was alarmed. Someone outside had pulled up to the kerb on what looked like a huge motorcycle. “Is it a Clegane?”

 

“No,” said Jaime, in tones of doom, “worse.”

 

The door of the pub banged open and in strode a tall woman in a black leather jacket, pulling off a helmet to reveal slicked-back fair hair. Tormund looked over the moon to see her. “What’ll it be, lass?”

 

“The usual, thanks,” she said crisply, coming up to the bar. Jaime was trying to hide behind Tyrion, further cementing his reputation as the stupidest Lannister. As a grinning Tormund passed her a cider, the woman glanced in their direction and started.

 

“Jaime?” she exclaimed.

 

Jaime looked as if he had swallowed an octopus live and was having real trouble keeping it down.

 

Tormund went back to glowering. “You know this posh fucker, Brienne?”

 

“Wait,” said Tyrion. “Brienne? Brienne Tarth? Sansa’s colleague?” He punched Jaime in the arm. “And you were being so hard on me for getting cosy with the press!”

 

“I did no such thing!” shouted Jaime. “And for the last time, I’m not saying anything on record, so you can quit stalking me.”

 

“Who said I’m stalking you?” Brienne returned to her cider. “ _I_ come here all the time. Looks like you’re the one stalking me.”

 

“No, but _how_ do you two know each other?” Tyrion demanded, fascinated, as Jaime spluttered in the background. “Pray tell. Your article may have ruined my life, so I deserve that much.”

 

Brienne spared him a sidelong glance. “You’re Tyrion, aren’t you? Sorry about that. Sansa did say she felt poorly about it.”

 

“I hear that a lot,” said Tyrion. “It’s done. Now, please tell me how you know my brother.”

 

“I fought him in an underground boxing ring,” said Brienne.

 

“This is excellent,” breathed Tyrion. “Did you kick his arse?”

 

“No,” said Jaime.

 

“Of course,” said Brienne. “Floored him in one.”

 

“I was distracted,” said Jaime.

 

“By what? Not my stunning looks, I’m sure; you made that much clear.”

 

“I think your looks are well distracting,” Tormund informed her.

 

“Yes, thanks,” said Brienne briskly. To Tyrion, she went on: “Anyway, I made an impression, and we got to talking, and then I found out about what your family does.”

 

“You seduced him for information!” crowed Tyrion. “Brother dear, you are in absolutely no position to criticise me about Sansa.”

 

“I did _not_ – ugh,” said Brienne hotly. “We were friends.”

 

Tormund began wiping out a glass with more violence than was necessary, muttering imprecations to himself.

 

“I only became friends with her out of pity, just so you know,” Jaime told Tyrion bitterly. “I didn’t know she was going to start digging up stuff about the family business.”

 

“I have never lied to you about what I was doing, Jaime,” Brienne said over Tyrion’s head. “I told you what your family was doing was criminal and I asked you to help me. I asked you to choose the right side.”

 

“And I asked you to stop,” Jaime shot back, “because it was _dangerous_ , because my family can _destroy_ you – ”

 

“I’m not worried, Jaime,” said Brienne calmly. “Why are you?”

 

“Because – ” began Jaime, throwing up his hands in despair and failing to finish the sentence.

 

“Well, I think we’re done here.” Brienne finished off her cider, slid a fiver over the bar to Tormund and rose. “Sansa and I are working on some follow-ups. If you’d like to do something decent for once in your life, Jaime, you know where to find me. If not, I don’t know what to say to you.” 

 

She collected her helmet and strode out. “See you soon!” called Tormund hopefully after her.

 

“Jaime,” said Tyrion with barely-suppressed delight, “you fancy that woman.”

 

“I do not,” said Jaime, darkly.

 

“I’m so happy for you,” went on Tyrion. “Yes, she’s rather ruined our lives and ethically speaking she’s way out of your league, but this is frankly the least toxic relationship I’ve ever seen you have with a woman, not that it’s a very crowded field.”

 

“Fuck off.”

 

“Whatever would Cersei say – ”

 

“Tyrion.” Jaime turned to him, suddenly graver than Tyrion had ever seen him. “Cersei _cannot_ know. I’m dead serious.”

 

“All right,” said Tyrion, taken aback. “All right. Nobody here is going to say anything.” He gestured at Tormund. “Right?”

 

“Not a word,” said Tormund. “I swear it on my grandfather’s balls.” He scowled at them both. “Now get the fuck out of my bar.”

 

*

 

“ _Next week_?” exclaimed Jon.

 

“That’s what he said.” Tyrion picked through the ravioli selection in the prepackaged food aisle. “Butternut squash or ricotta and spinach?”

 

“Neither,” said Jon, perturbed. “Isn’t there any bacon tomato?”

 

“There is, but it’s not reduced.” Tyrion tossed him the squash ravioli. “I’d start looking on Craigslist again, if I were you.”

 

“That’s it? We’re just going to roll over?”

 

“I’d avoid pissing off my family any more than we already have.”

 

“It was really beginning to grow on me,” said Jon mournfully. “The flat, I mean. Like fungus on a damp ceiling.”

 

“Excuse me?” It was a bright-eyed young woman with huge hoop earrings and a crop top, in all defiance of the advancing autumn weather. She was beaming hopefully at Jon. When he turned his attention to her, she said breathily, “I’m so sorry to be a bother, but do you mind helping me reach something on the top shelf?”

 

“Of course,” said Jon, courteously.

 

Tyrion rolled his eyes. Jon wasn't much taller than the woman, but this tended to happen when he and Jon went on errands to the supermarket together, or the library, or the drugstore. It was the man-bun, coupled with his aura of brooding nobility. When he wore his reading glasses out, the effect doubled. Jon was completely oblivious to all this. He was clearly headed towards being stupid in love with the upstairs neighbour, though imminent eviction was likely to throw a spanner into those works.

 

Jon had helped the woman retrieve a sixpack from the top shelf – with some difficulty, since top shelf was really not playing to his strengths – and she was now trying to invent ways to prolong their interaction. “You look like you work out,” she cooed. “Do you go to any gyms around here?”

 

“Well,” said Jon, “I do CrossFit.”

 

“I’ve been thinking of trying that out.”

 

“It’s not for everyone,” said Jon, brow wrinkling.

 

The woman looked thrown for a second. Tyrion sighed and cleared his throat. “Oi, Snow, the bin-liners are two-for-one, how many do you want to get?”

 

“Nice to meet you,” said Jon, and hurried over, following the siren call of the Sainsbury’s discount. Tyrion ignored the dirty look that the woman threw him.

 

“What happens to our deposits?” Jon asked as they shovelled kitchen roll into the trolley. 

 

“Nothing good.”

 

“We could talk to the newspapers. Let them know what your family’s trying to do to us, to the neighbourhood.”

 

“That’s how we got into this situation to begin with.”

 

“Yeah, but maybe they could help us build a case. I really don’t want to be homeless right before mid-terms, Tyrion.”

 

“I know you don’t, but – ”

 

“Gentlemen.”

 

Jon and Tyrion spun to look at the man who had addressed them. He was wearing what looked like a very lush burnt orange dressing gown and possibly nothing underneath. In his left hand, he had a large bottle of tequila, electronic tag still on.

 

“I don’t mean to eavesdrop,” said the stranger. He had a musical, vaguely familiar voice. “But you wouldn’t happen to be facing eviction, would you?”

 

“What’s it to you?” said Tyrion, hostile.

 

The man raised his hand in a placating gesture, then reached into his robe – really, not wearing anything underneath – and pulled out a letter, which he extended in their direction. Jon, who was a little less squeamish about hygiene, took it.

 

“Oh,” he said. “You too?”

 

“Next week,” agreed the man. “This wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with that great spread on the Lannisters in the papers the other day, would it?”

 

“It does, I’m afraid,” said Tyrion. In the interest of full disclosure, he added: “I’m Tyrion Lannister, by the way. Sorry about my family.”

 

“Oberyn Martell,” said the man, shaking their hands. “Which building are you in?”

 

“We’re a street over at – ” Tyrion looked at the address in the letter again, realisation dawning. “You live in the house behind us.” Now he knew where he’d heard that voice before. “You’re Sex Man!”

 

“Am I?” inquired Oberyn, amused.

 

Tyrion pointed at him. “You’re just having sex! All the time! Which, kudos, we’re very happy for you, but could you keep it down after midnight?”

 

“What can I say?” Oberyn spread his arms expansively. “I am enthusiastic about the things I love.”

 

Jon examined the hand with which he had shaken Oberyn’s with a muted horror.

 

“Ellaria!” Oberyn called out to the smoky-eyed woman in the adjacent aisle, who had been browsing the air fresheners. She was wearing a long, sheer leopard-print caftan and, noticeably, no bra. “These are our neighbours,” Oberyn told her as she swept into his arms. “They, too, are facing eviction. Also they call me Sex Man.”

 

“That’s very original,” Ellaria informed them archly. Oberyn’s hand had disappeared suggestively somewhere behind her. 

 

“Here’s your letter back,” said Tyrion hastily, before their neighbours got thrown out of Sainsbury’s for public indecency. “As to the eviction, we’re exploring a number of options - we’ll keep you posted if you like.”

 

“As are we,” replied Oberyn. “I imagine we will be in touch.” He and Ellaria began walking towards check-out, but not before he called over his shoulder, “And if the noise keeps you up at night? You’re always welcome to join in.”

 

*

 

Jon had just finished packing up at the Castle Black box when Daenerys hailed him from across the quad. She was, as ever, with Missandei and G. 

 

“We’re going on a protest,” she called. “Want to come?”

 

“It’s not really my kind of thing,” Jon shouted back.

 

“I think you’ll find it’s relevant to you, whether you like it or not.” Daenerys and Missandei spun their signs around to show him. Daenerys’s read _THE LANNISTERS ALWAYS PAY THEIR DEBTS? PAY_ _THIS_ _ONE_. Missandei’s read _DASTARDLY CASTERLY_.

 

“Um,” said Jon.

 

“Come on, it’ll be fun!” Daenerys waved her sign. “Unless you already had plans for this evening?”

 

Jon’s plans for this evening had involved his bioethics essay, which was due tomorrow at noon. He hoped Dr Seaworth would not be too upset if he tried to wing it tonight.

 

“That’s the spirit!” cried Daenerys as he trudged over to join them. 

 

“I’ve never been on a protest before,” Jon remarked, as they joined the main group of protesters preparing to head off from the university gates. 

 

“Oh, they’re great,” said Daenerys. “I’ve been on tons. Though, admittedly, I have more of a stake in this one than usual. Have you and Tyrion thought about what you’re going to do about eviction?”

 

“We’re still working it out. You?”

 

“I’m not moving,” said Daenerys. “I just got here. They can try to drag me out of there kicking and screaming, but I’ve been thrown out of too many places in my life and this time I won’t budge.”

 

Jon wanted to ask her more about what she meant, but the protest started in earnest then. The crowd moved at a sedate pace down the street, chanting slogans. 

 

“We’re headed to Westminster,” Daenerys informed him. “To protest in front of Parliament. That’s the plan, at least.”

 

It was nice weather for a march, even if Jon would have been loath to admit it so close to winter – crisp, but not chilly. Daenerys’ cheeks were apple-pink in the cool air. Missandei had passed her placard to G and taken out a Tupperware of biscuits, which she began handing out to their fellow protesters. 

 

It was when they were coming up to Embankment that a ripple of unease began, spreading back through the crowd in waves. Daenerys pushed forward to catch the whispers, then relayed it to them. “They’re saying that there’s a police blockade up ahead at the junction. They’re going to try to turn us away from Westminster.”

 

The protest had begun to bleed slightly at the edges, people slipping away. “Jon,” said Daenerys in a low voice, “I know you didn’t sign up for this, and it could get ugly from here on in. You should leave now if you don’t want to see that.”

 

“That’s all right,” said Jon, and kept walking. 

 

Up ahead, he could see the blockade. He felt a frisson of alarm to see the police in their riot gear, shields glinting dully in the setting sun. There was a barricade of iron railings; beyond that, he could see the police lines, riot vans, even some officers mounted on horses. 

 

The crowd was spreading out along the blockade like water that has encountered a dam, testing the edges, probing for weaknesses. Those at the front were demanding to know why they couldn’t pass, to which the police kept up a stony silence.

 

“Brace yourselves,” murmured Daenerys. “Here it comes.” Jon, startled, felt her slip her hand into his.

 

It started at the fringes of the protest. At first, distant shouts; then, closer, panicked screams. “Kettle!” someone was yelling. “ _Kettle_!”

 

Suddenly it was like everyone was surging around them, pressing them in. Jon almost tripped and fell, but Daenerys was hauling him after her as she pushed towards a lamppost. She had dropped her sign in the melee and now she shimmied up the lamppost, Jon scrambling after her. Up here he could better see what was happening: the police had formed a cordon around the protest and were hemming them in, pushing them forward so that they were crushed against one another. 

 

“Missandei!” screamed Daenerys. Missandei had made a run for one of the iron railings and was trying to climb it. Jon watched in horror as a police officer grabbed her by the collar and bodily threw her back into the crush. Then G was there, catching her and helping her up before she could be trampled.

 

“Over here!” Jon and Daenerys waved and shouted until G, Missandei tucked into his side, made it through the sea of bodies over to the lamppost. They clung to it as the crush raged around them. 

 

Daenerys had got her phone out and was filming the chaos around them one-handed. Then she began texting industriously. “What’s the hashtag for this protest?” 

 

“#HikeStrike?” hazarded Missandei. “Or was it #StopTheRentHikes? Is that Twitter?”

 

“Yeah. Get this out there, people have got to know."

 

Jon, for his part, called Sansa. “Are you in the office? I’m in a kettle.”

 

“What’s happened?”

 

“A kettle,” repeated Jon. “Like a police kettle. I joined a rent protest and we got kettled before we reached Westminster. There’s got to be hundreds of people here.”

 

“Oh, shit.” Jon could hear her typing. “Tell me what you see.”

 

Jon tried to describe what he saw: the crush of bodies, the truncheons flashing, the younger students crying as they were pressed against one another. 

 

“Have you got any video footage?”

 

“Daenerys – that’s my neighbour – has some.” Daenerys, filming again, looked over at him inquiringly. _Sansa_ , mouthed Jon. 

 

Sansa recited her number so Daenerys could send her the videos. “And stay safe, Jon, I don’t know how long they’ll keep you there.”

 

Jon looked out over the chaos and started mentally composing his apology to Dr Seaworth.

 

*

 

The kettle lasted five hours. 

 

Things had calmed down once the protesters had grown accustomed to their lot. They took turns sitting down with their backs to the lamppost, since there was barely standing room. Daenerys and Missandei, calm and practised, unloaded the backpack that G had been carrying and extracted more biscuits, which they handed around. It was clearly not their first kettle. The backpack also contained bottles of water and battery packs, with which they were taking turns to charge their phones to keep track of news coverage of the protest.

 

G, Jon discovered, was not a conversationalist. The only thing Jon had learnt about him in the past five hours was that G stood for Grey, and that Jon had not yet earned the right to address him as such. 

 

“How’d you meet Daenerys?” he tried.

 

“Through Missandei,” said G tersely.

 

Jon decided to venture further. “Did you know her ex-husband too?”

 

“No,” said G. “I met her after.”

 

“After...the divorce?”

 

G gave Jon a look that clearly implied he thought him a moron. “After he died.”

 

“Okay,” said Jon.

 

G looked up at the sky, indicating that the conversation was over.

  

“Dany? Dany?”

 

There was a man at the barrier, shouting for Daenerys. He seemed older, with salt-and-pepper hair and a beard.

 

“Jorah?” shouted Daenerys. “What are you doing here?”

 

“What are _you_ doing here?” Jorah yelled back. “Why didn’t you tell me what you were up to? I had to find out on _Twitter_ , Dany. All right,” this to the bored-looking police officers on either side, “that’s enough now, fellows, let her out.”

 

“You got a lot of nerve coming round here again, Mormont,” said one. “After what you did with your badge.”

 

The other yawned. “That little girl’s got you whipped.”

 

“Come on,” repeated Jorah. “I’m her legal guardian. She’s just a kid.”

 

“I’m _twenty-five_ – ”

 

The yawning officer sighed. “Fine, Mormont. But she’s got to stop doing this.”

 

“Let’s go, Dany.”

 

“But what about my friends?” Daenerys was plaintive. “I’m not leaving my friends behind.”

 

“How many friends is this?”

 

Daenerys looked at Missandei, at G and Jon over by the lamppost. Then she looked back at Jorah and the police officers and smiled. It was positively beatific. She spread her arms to indicate the entire crowd.

 

“All of them. They’re all my friends.”

 

Jorah threw up his hands. “For Christ’s sakes, Dany.”

 

“I’m not going to stop the wheel. I’m going to break the wheel.” Daenerys raised a fist. “Let us go!” The other protesters took up the chant. “ _Let us go! Let us go!_ ”

 

It was close to midnight when they were finally let out of the kettle. By that point, most of the protesters were too exhausted to do more than glare daggers at the police as they shuffled out of the exit point.

 

Jorah was waiting for them in a back street, leaning against a beat-up Chevy. “Dany,” he said.

 

Daenerys strode up to him, eyes blazing. “I don’t ask for you to come and save me, Jorah.”

 

Jorah opened the passenger door with a long-suffering air. Daenerys stared up at him for a long beat. Then she got in.

 

Jorah shut the door on her. Then he turned to Jon and looked him up and down critically.

 

“You’re the neighbour.”

 

“That’s me,” said Jon.

 

Jorah made a non-committal noise. “Lift home?”

 

G and Missandei, who lived in Southwark, said they would walk from here. Jon, in the backseat, watched them recede into the night as the Chevy pulled away, G’s arm looped around Missandei’s small shoulders.

 

Daenerys was silent for most of the drive. As they went up Tottenham Court Road, she said primly, “Thank you.”

 

“You’re welcome,” said Jorah dourly.

 

Their street seemed quiet for a change – the usual crowd of drunk students had picked a pub further down to carouse at – and so Jon almost missed the figure of Tyrion, sitting hunched on the steps in front of their house.

 

He raised his head wearily as they approached. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you.”

 

“I was in a protest and my phone died.” Jon stared at him. “What’s happened?”

 

Tyrion jerked a thumb at the front door. It had a padlock and chain on it.

 

“It was like that when I got back,” he said.

 

Jon considered himself a fairly stoic person. He could put up with a lot. But now he was really, really fucking tired.

 

Behind him, Daenerys raised her face to the night sky and screamed.

 

*

 

 **jon:** _hey I know it’s late_ _  
_ ****

**jon:** _but does anyone know anyone who has a pair of boltcutters? or a large hammer?  
_ ****

**jon:** _and is free to come over to mine around now  
_

**arya: (…)**

**sansa:** _omg jon it’s past midnight_

**arya: (…)**

**arya:** _so I might know someone_

 **arya:** _but you can’t say a thing to mum_

 **robb:** _it’s ok she’s still mad at us all_

 

*

 

Gendry Waters was tall, shaven and built like an ox. Nor had Arya been kidding about the size of the hammer.

 

“Where did your sister find this bloke?” Tyrion whispered to Jon, as they watched Gendry take another swing at the padlock.

 

“I’m not sure I want to know,” Jon whispered back.

 

“Well,” said Arya, from where she was perched on a fire hydrant, “you’re not finding out.”

 

She and Gendry had shown up out of the night within the hour, Gendry with the hammer slung over his shoulder, Arya strolling ahead of him, hands in pockets, whistling. Tyrion still had no idea what it was that Arya did, whether she was actually based in London, or why the rest of the Starks seemed absolutely blase about her endless mysteries.

 

There was a crunch and smash. “The good news,” said Gendry, “is that you can get in now. The bad news is that you don’t really have a door any more.”

 

“I have no standards any longer,” said Tyrion bleakly. “I will take what I can get.”

 

Jon shook hands solemnly with Gendry, who had shouldered his hammer once more. “I owe you a favour, Gendry Waters.”

 

“You do,” said Arya, examining her nails.

 

“So I’m not going to ask if you’re sleeping with my sister,” Jon went on.

 

“Fair,” said Gendry. He clapped Jon on the back. “Come on, m’lady.”

 

“Fuck off,” rejoined Arya, hopping off the hydrant. “Be seeing you, Jon.”

 

Daenerys was arguing with Jorah. “I don’t think it’s safe for you to stay here any longer,” he was saying.

 

“I will stay where I bloody well like!”

 

“After everything that has transpired – ”

 

Daenerys folded her arms. “I’m not going back with you, Jorah.”

 

Jorah threw up his hands in defeat. Tyrion reckoned he would probably go back to sitting in his car and watching the front door until morning.

 

As she was going upstairs, Daenerys caught Jon by the elbow. “Thank you,” she said, simply. “For today.”

 

Jon looked like you could have run a lawnmower over his foot and he wouldn’t have noticed.

 

Yep, thought Tyrion. It was all going stupidly.

  



End file.
